


Don't start fires, darling

by natigail



Series: Phanfic Bingo 2019 [3]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2019!phan, Bad Cooking, Canon Compliant, Cooking, Cooking Lessons, Domestic, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, Fire, M/M, Phandom Fic Fests: Bingo, Reality, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 01:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20770643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natigail/pseuds/natigail
Summary: Phil wanted to expand his and Dan's repertoire of dishes, so they didn't need to live off of stir-fry and delivery. He thought that cooking lessons would be an awesome way to do that and have a fun date activity. The people in the restaurant do not agree but he and Dan find the humour in it.Phanfic Bingo - Cooking Lessons: A class where you can learn how to cook ingredients and prepare food.





	Don't start fires, darling

**Author's Note:**

> Prepare for loads of fluff and domesticity. Enjoy!

Phil walked into the lounge to find Dan on the sofa, laptop in his lap and a hand resting against his chin. It was so very domestic and a sight that greeted Phil more days than not. He found himself pausing in the doorway, just for a beat, as he looked at Dan who was clearly absorbed in what was happening on his screen.

He was wearing that ugly potato sack jumper that Phil did not like one bit but now he more pretended to dislike it for the fun of it. Like most of Dan’s habits or processions, Phil came to appreciate them with time, even if he hadn’t like them at first.

Phil was studying Dan’s face closely so he saw when a flicker of distraction moved across his face and not a second later, he was tilting his eyes up and naturally zeroing in on Phil who was still lingering in the doorway. As soon as his eyes connected, a small movement tugged his lips upwards in a casual but very real smile. Phil didn’t know if he was every going to get used to the sight of Dan smiling when he noticed him. He knew for sure that he’d never tire of it.

“What’s up? You have your plotting face on,” Dan said nonchalantly before glancing back at his screen.

“No, I don’t,” Phil protested. “If anything, I have my I-love-Dan face on.”

Dan chuckled, deep and barely audible. “You never take that one off.”

“Ungrateful bastard,” Phil muttered before he walked over to the sofa and sat down next to Dan, so close that he almost nudged the laptop out of the way with his movement.

“And yet you still love me,” Dan said with an exaggerated wink.

How that still worked after so many years together, Phil really didn’t know but he felt his face heating up and he got the impulse to push at Dan’s shoulders to get him to stop.

“You love me too. Shut up,” Phil said, falling flat on the comeback as he usually did when Dan teased him out of the blue.

“I do,” Dan said so sincerely that Phil couldn’t help but grin back at him.

Even after ten years together, they still told each other that often. It was whispered in early morning when they woke up, between panting breaths in their bed, nonverbally conveyed through hand squeezes in public and so much more.

“You’re impossible,” Phil said. “And if you have anything on the calendar on Saturday you need to clear it.”

Dan narrowed his eyes and put his computer on the coffee table in the same movement.

“Why?”

“Because I planned something for us,” Phil replied innocently.

“That sounds ominous. Are you going to lure me out into the forest and kill me?”

“If I wanted you dead, I’m pretty sure I’d have figured a way to do it by now,” Phil said while rolling his eyes at his boyfriend’s antics. “It’s just something fun. A date activity.”

Dan shifted a little in his seat. “I don’t like the sound of that any better. What are you planning, Phil? Just tell me.”

“What if I wanted it to be a surprise?” Phil whined and leaned into Dan’s space and rested his head on his shoulder.

“_Phil_.”

“Fine. We’re going to take cooking lessons,” Phil replied.

Dan looked an awful lot like the blinking man meme and Phil started to giggle at the sight, not bothering to bring up his hand to cover his mouth like he usually did on camera because he had long stopped doing it around Dan.

“Cooking lessons? Have you forgotten about all our baking videos?”

“No! Those are great,” Phil said seriously.

“In half of them something goes wrong and we manage to just barely salvage it,” Dan reminded him.

“Well, it’ll be half the fun. Come on, Dan! I’m sure we can do it and I’m a little tired of living off of stir-fry and delivery. We need some new dishes in our repertoire!”

“Maybe, I have plans on Saturday.”

“No, you don’t,” Phil said in his chipper tone because he knew when the battle was won and he had already managed to reel Dan in, just like planned.

“Hey, I could have plans,” Dan argued, acting offended.

“Unlikely but I already checked your calendar, idiot.”

“Why did you tell me I needed to clear my calendar then?”

“Because I wanted to ease you into it. Who do you take me for?”

“A spontaneous boyfriend who suddenly books cooking lessons?” Dan said and tilted his head to the side and smirked.

Phil didn’t rise to the bait. He knew he’d won.

“Saturday will be awesome!” Phil singsong as he strolled out of the longue.

Saturday would surely be something but it didn’t end up going like Phil had thought.

Firstly, when they arrived at the posh restaurant, they felt a little out of place. Most people had brought aprons of their owns and some even had equipment along as well, even if the sign-up post had explicitly stated that you could just show up with yourself and that everything would be at your disposal.

It also seemed like a lot of the couples around them really cared about food or at least knew a bit about how to prepare it. It was so very clear by the stern instructor that this was not really a place to have fun. Dan and Phil giggled a little together under the introduction and in return they were shot glare from everyone. Everyone was wearing much to serious frowns and Phil almost wished that he and Dan had brought along some of their ridiculous aprons to lighten the mood. He wouldn’t mind the six-pack apron right about now.

Dan seemed to think the whole thing was a bit ridiculous and he made it his mission to snicker to Phil, making up stories about all the couples around them at every turn.

“I bet that one conned her husband to come along with her by promising sexual favours,” he said while wiggling his eyebrows and nodded towards a couple where the guy was much more interested in staring at his wife’s backside than watching the pot. “And I bet those two actually know how to make risotto already and they are only here to show off and get a stamp for best execution or something,” he continued, this time nodding towards an older couple that seemed to move smoothly and in sync.

Phil couldn’t help but laugh and he was endlessly thankful that Dan was choosing to see the funny side of this. He also knew that Dan was stepping up to the plate and trying to lighten the mood because he’d picked up on Phil being a little out of his element and uncomfortable. They were so good at reading each other and if one was uncomfortable, the other would always step up to help as much as he could.

“Ah fuck,” Dan swore, as he nicked himself with the knife while cutting the mushrooms. “Slippery fuckers.”

Someone coughed off to their left, probably to indicate that they did not like Dan’s profanity. It took all Phil’s restraint not to turn around and yell something silly like: “Everyone swears when they hurt themselves, Susan. Shut up.”

“Here let me help,” he said to Dan instead, scooting him over with his hip. “Wash your cut and go find a plaster.”

Dan grumbled, but he reached out with his uninjured hand and gave Phil’s hip a light squeeze as he moved past.

Cutting mushrooms did prove more difficult than expected and Phil was fairly sure that he was more mashing them than actually dicing them but they got made into smaller pieces and that was all that mattered.

Dan returned with the instructor trailing behind him and when she saw the dicing work, she nearly looked disgusted.

“You’re cutting them… too finely. The chunks should be bigger,” she lectured.

“Well, I like my mushrooms thinly sliced and battered,” Dan said, tossing an arm around Phil and shooting a glare at the instructor.

She just shook her head and moved on.

Softening the mushrooms in the pan went off mostly without a hitch, if you disregarded the fact that they probably got a little too much because the time suggested had been made for bigger chunks of mushroom.

“It’s fine,” Phil said and waved his hand.

He would repeat that when he took to dicing the shallots and nearly cut himself just like Dan had done. He would say it one more time when Dan dipped too much wine into the mixture and then joked that they could use the buzz. Or when both of them didn’t see that you had to add the broth gradually and instead just dumped the whole thing in one go. Phil found it a little hard to say it when he realised that they had forgotten to stir occasionally and some of the rice mixture had gotten stuck on the bottom of the pan.

Phil knew his face of shock must have been a comical one because Dan burst out laughing and continued to do so as he leaned forward, nearly toppling over.

“We’re so bad at this,” he said, wiping the corners of his eyes once he found his breath again.

“No, we’re not. We will learn to cook if it will be the end of us.”

“I think it might be with how everything is going,” Dan commented, but as he did, he leaned into Phil space enough to just rest a hand on his waist for a second. Phil took this as the invitation to turn around and wrap Dan up in a proper hug and bury his face in Dan’s neck. It was more affectionate than he would normally be in public but they had easily established that no one in this cooking class knew who the hell they were and even so, they had technically come out as a couple, even if it had been done so quietly that most traditional media had left it alone.

“How is it coming along here?” the instructor asked as she came to check on them. When she peaked into the mixture, she put on an obvious fake smile and told them good job very unenthusiastically.

Both Dan and Phil chuckled as she left.

Phil was in the process grating the parmesan cheese and Dan was chopping chives when something suddenly started to smell burnt. At first, Phil just thought it was their pan finally revealing its horrible burnt bottom of the rice concoction but he yelped and jumped back when he looked over at the stove.

One of them, Phil wasn’t even sure if it was himself or Dan, seemed to have placed the butter too close to the stove and it was currently on fire. The packaging around the butter was legitimately on fire and Phil couldn’t do anything but just stare at it.

He could not find it in himself to say that this was going to be fine.

The other couples around them took notice of the flames and now everyone was shouting. Phil just watched, horribly downtrodden and he could not believe that his fun and practical date idea with Dan could go this off the rails. He supposed that it was good that they didn’t go do too many date activities if this would be the norm.

“Move aside,” the instructor said and ran over with small fire extinguisher that she aimed expertly and soon Dan and Phil’s whole cooking surface was covered in white foam. Bye, bye, risotto, Phil thought painfully.

He knew it was probably for the greater good but he couldn’t help but wonder if it would still have turned out tasty. Whenever anything went wrong with their baking adventures, it was not really the taste that suffered. Sure, sometimes the texture or the colour was off but the most important part of food was undeniably the taste.

Once the fire was put out, the instructor turned around to face Dan and Phil. She might as well have put out the fire by capturing it in her eyes because she looked pissed. If Phil didn’t know better, he was prepared to say that the smoke lingering around their workstation could be coming out of her ears.

“The two of you. First you don’t listen during the instructions, then you do the worst job dicing that I’ve ever seen and you manage to injure yourself, then you pour in the whole bottle of wine which would have ruined the taste, then you burn your rice… I didn’t think it could get any worse but setting the workstation on fire is a new one.”

“Err… sorry?” Dan said but he sounded too amused for it to come across genuinely.

“We are really sorry,” Phil said, and he tried to keep the mask better than Dan.

Now that no one was in danger, it was kind of hilarious how much had gone wrong. You had to see the humour in it or it would just be sad. It was a motto that Dan and Phil used a lot when attempting something that didn’t work out.

“Hand over your aprons and leave, please. And do not book another session,” the instructor said sternly.

Dan barely caught a chuckle in his throat and Phil quickly moved to pull his apron over his head to hide the grin on his face. They handed over their borrowed aprons and made their way to the door while everyone just looked at them.

They made it down the street before they both burst out laughed.

“I feel like we were just kicked off MasterChef or something,” Dan said and put on his TV host voice. “Pack up your knifes and leave!”

“I don’t know if any of those contestants have ever set anything on fire.”

Dan shrugged. “They probably have. It’s a mess. But to our defence, those are people who pride themselves on cooking. We’re just happy amateurs.”

“Amateurs who are now banned,” Phil noted and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“Hey,” Dan said and knocked their shoulders together as they walked. “London is full of cooking classes. We can just find another one if you’re serious about this.”

“I know,” Phil said, his mood dampening a bit.

“Why did you really want to do this?” Dan asked, perceptive as ever.

“I want to be able cook together in the kitchen, you know? There is something nice and domestic about it, instead of us just taking turns or getting a delivery. It’s nice and I thought if we learned some recipes together then we might cook together more.”

Dan seemed to consider Phil’s words for a moment, which he always tried to do whenever Phil said something that should be taken seriously. They could exchange banter and tease each other but fundamentally they had huge respect for each other and the other’s wishes.

“I’m sure we can find recipes online and just teach ourselves, you know?”

“What if we burn _our_ kitchen down?” Phil asked, his mood instantly lightened at the knowledge that Dan still wanted to learn how to cook with him despite the disaster that had been the last hour. He really shouldn’t have expected anything else.

“We bought a fire extinguisher too,” Dan said, smiling in a way that brought his dimples out. “I’m sure we can handle anything that might come up.”

Phil suddenly felt a little silly that he’d felt compelled to almost trick Dan into attending cooking lessons with him, when it was clear that he could just have asked his partner and he would have been up for the two of them figuring it out together.

“Do you even want to learn how to cook?”

“I mean, I was the guy who didn’t know that you needed to put water in to boil pasta while at university. I’m not that bad anymore but I know I don’t cook a lot. You do most of the cooking at home and yeah, it would be nice to be able to cook together. It feels very adult but I suppose we can’t run from that forever.”

“It’s only as adult as we make it,” Phil insisted and he didn’t stop himself from reaching out and looping his arm around Dan’s. “One thing I didn’t like in that class was how everyone took it so seriously. Cooking is supposed to be fun. You’re supposed to be able to laugh with your partner and have a good time while also making something to eat. Do you know my favourite part of our baking videos?”

Dan hummed. “Why don’t you tell me?”

The way Dan asked, Phil knew that he knew but he just wanted to hear Phil say it. Often Phil showed affection in more subtle and less explicit ways than Dan. He was more tactile and he couldn’t always find the words to express what was happening in his heart. But when Dan asked him to try, he could sure as hell try.

“Our laughs and smiles. How we’re in it together. We just have a bunch of ingredients in front of us but with time, effort and dedication we’re able to make something. It’s almost never as pretty as the photos but it’s always brimming with personality and it’s _ours_. We make something. Together.”

Dan looked over at him and caught his eyes. There was so much warmth and fondness exchanged in just that one glance and Phil knew his eyes glanced back with the same expression because Dan’s expression softened even further the longer that they maintained eye contact.

“Once a week, we’ll try out a new recipe together,” Dan said definitely. “We’ll learn how to make more things together. Oh, and hopefully get delicious food.”

“I’ll keep the fire extinguisher at hand,” Phil teased.

“Only if you use it to cool my flaming heart,” Dan joked with a wink, which had Phil dissolving into giggles. He would likely have fallen over, if his arm was still not looped through Dan’s.

“Personal cooking lessons,” Phil agreed once his laughter subsided.

“I call dips on the six-pack apron!” Dan shouted, much too loudly for the somewhat busy street that they were walking down.

“That’s not fair,” Phil complained and untangled their arms when he realised just how many people were around them. “It’s mine.”

“What’s mine is yours,” Dan said and leaned in close to whisper, “darling.”

“I hate you,” Phil grumbled, trying very hard to keep the frown on his face.

“I know,” Dan replied, eyes brimming with love.

**Author's Note:**

> And here we have my third phanfic bingo entry but my first that's not an AU. I do love my AUs a whole lot - I have so much fun creating worlds - but there is also something lovely about returning to write about the boys in a "reality" setting. I find that I also feel a little more comfortable including more obvious romantic elements after they're come out, even if this one still mostly leaves the interactions just soft but not necessarily romantic. We always knew they loved each other and that's how I've always written my "reality" fics about them. 
> 
> Anyway, I'm ranting so I'll stop now. I hope you enjoy this one shot, it was one of the more difficult one to put down and I have elements that I'm not entirely happy with but I do adore especially some of the dialogue exchanges. If you like this, keep an eye out for my profile or my writing tumblr to see if I manage to post the other 22 fics before the deadline the 27th of October. So far, my plan of daily uploads on weekdays is going well. *self-high five*


End file.
